


This is My Life

by jendavis



Series: Coming Right Along [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Episode: s05e04 The End, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-10
Updated: 2010-11-10
Packaged: 2017-10-13 03:58:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/132591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jendavis/pseuds/jendavis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>God was gone, but Chuck had stayed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This is My Life

**Author's Note:**

> Written for hc_bingo , prompt, "body hatred," though I did drift away a bit from the original prompt.

Once upon a time, when he'd first started to fall, when he'd still been more _Castiel_ than _Cas_ , Dean had tried to tell him about the birds and the bees, about eating and sleeping and showering and all of it. It had been a mortifying conversation, and only necessary, apparently, for Dean's state of mind.

Castiel had watched humans for some time- for thousands and thousands of years- and for all of the things that still confounded him, physiology, at least, he'd long understood.

He'd known what to do. He hadn't known how awful it would all be, how weak he would feel, how sick he could get.

He shaves every few days, now, with an increasingly dull blade that probably won't be replaced any time soon. He brushes his teeth, showers. All of it.

It never seems to matter. An hour later he'll be dirty, marred, with a new stain on his sleeve or fresh bruise blooming underneath. Sometimes he discovers a raw patch on his jaw line, left from the razor, that stings when he touches it.

He can't ever stop poking at it.

\---

Once upon a time, he could derail tragedy by pure accident, with nothing more than a shift of his wings.

This war is different. The weapons had been easiest to understand, and he'd learned them well enough early on.

The strategies, born of human capabilities and necessity, are still strange, circuitous and inefficient, but they're more useful than the thousand plans and memories of what Castiel once knew. Timing is different- _time_ is different- and there's distance now, too. And so much _waiting_.

And then there are the battles, though it still feels presumptuous a word to apply to the skirmishes and scuffles they manage to find. Sometimes it's a handful of demons on the road skirting the edge of the territory they've claimed as their own, and they lose one or two people to a fight that Castiel could have stopped with a thought, Sometimes, it's merely riding in the back of a truck, only to jump out, grab what he can, and stop someone else from getting it first. He feels every fist and boot and every swipe of the blade, and at some point, he'll probably understand what it feels like to be gut-shot and bleeding, too.

He already understands what it is in people's eyes, though, when they latch onto a bruise or a cut that still itches underneath the dried blood- it's pity. Cas hates it most when it's Dean, hates the guilt that's mixed in even more.

Dean had been the spark, but Castiel had made his own choice, and it's _not_ Dean's responsibility. But sometimes, when he's bleeding and sore and hoping he can make it into the rooms he sometimes shares with Chuck without being seen, he wonders if Dean really understands that all of them are supposed to be more than they are.

\---

Once upon a time, he had a mainline connection to all his brothers and sisters throughout the universe. He could feel their presence constantly, and hear the voices of thousands. He was never alone.

Now, he spends most nights sitting at the edge of someone else's campfire, trying to talk with people so scarred by the world that half of them didn't use their real names. They're wary of him, too, like they know he doesn’t belong there, but _none_ of them belong there, not really, and they know it. Few last more than a week before dying or moving on.

These people- they've traveled from everywhere, from Chicago and Delaware and Iowa and Virginia Beach, and what they carry with them is small, portable. There's no room for luxury, but all of them- these people with their assumed names- carry keepsakes. A creased photograph, a baby's teething ring, or a key on a chain.

Sometimes, late at night when the fire's burnt down to embers, the strangers pass these things around. Nobody ever talks about what the items mean, or who they represent, but that doesn't seem to be the point, anyway. As far as Cas can tell, judging by the sidelong glances that linger on his empty hands, it's people proving to themselves that they're all still human.

He doesn't own anything but a stolen body- Jimmy's gone now, and though he was rarely more than background noise, his new silence is deafening- and the amulet he'd once borrowed from Dean, promising to put it to good use, promising to give it back.

He's done neither, yet. The one time he tried to return the necklace, Dean angrily swore that if he ever laid eyes on it again, he'd melt it down for ammunition. So Cas keeps it hidden under his shirt, and never shows it to anyone.

It meant something different, once, to someone who once meant something different to him. He doesn't have anything- he _isn't_ anything but a collection of things that _weren't_ , anymore.

\---

Once upon a time, on the banks of what would later carve a new path and, _much_ later, be called the Euphrates, he'd taken his first vessel. Among her clan, she'd been considered old, and it was true, she was weak, and only had a scant number of days left when he found her. Her people had already moved on, somewhere into the next valley.

He hadn't known at the time, hadn't understood it as anything other than humanity's normal state of being. Hadn't understood how her perception of her own existence stretched so far back behind her- to him, her entire history was a brief spark. He hadn't understood her exhaustion.

Jimmy Novak had been thirty-five when he'd let Castiel's hundreds of thousands of years in.

Cas supposes himself to now be thirty-eight. His body is older than his first vessel had been when she'd passed, alone, on the riverbank, and he is _exhausted_.

Sleep is as close to endlessness as he could hope to achieve any more, but dreamtime is a fluid thing. He dreams eons of flight in moments, or survives seconds of hell that stretch out forever. He hasn't been home in long enough that he starts to wonder if he might've been dreaming of heaven.

He hasn't mastered it yet, and often, he stays awake for days. Sometimes, though, when the constant falling becomes a crash, he makes his way to the converted office to find that Chuck is already there, lying awake. Cas never asks if he's waiting- it still feels too forward, too presumptuous, but Chuck always seems to answer, anyway, holding up one corner of the blanket and shifting over to make room.

\---

Once upon a time, he'd made a choice, and he'd begun to fall.

It took a long time, because he had so far down to go.

He's weaker than the demons and weaker than the injuries he can't heal anymore. He can't make anyone sleep, even when Dean is still riled and tense and exhausted and worried and likely to get them all killed on tomorrow's supply run.

He can, however, still see people, see the demons inside them before they reveal themselves.

It's what makes him more useful than the average human, and it's pretty much all he has left to trade on. He's not sure when it's going to finally fade, but he expects, now, that it's coming.

He can still see Hell's history in Dean, how close he'd come to becoming a demon himself- not _possessed_ , but _grown_. Another five or ten souls on that rack and it would've been anybody's guess what Castiel had raised. He'll never tell Dean how close it had been.

And if it hurts to look at Dean, Chuck is a thousand times worse.

Castiel had the names of the prophets burned into him a very long time ago. God's words shone through them even when He wasn't speaking. It wasn't _grace_ , Castiel never knew _what_ it was, but it had been the only proof he had, anymore, that God actually existed.

And then, one day, he sees a man who is just _Chuck_ \- the same guy he'd always been, really- only now he's grinning back and saying his headaches are gone. He doesn't understand why Cas stares at him so hard, or where he goes for three days straight, afterwards.

Cas still isn't sure himself. One part of the forest surrounding their camp looks a lot like the next, these days.

If it wasn't for his new sense of self-preservation, the need for food and shelter and warmth finally breaking through his swirling _loss_ , he probably wouldn't be forcing himself to clamber back through the trees to avail himself of two different kinds of concern.

Dean is furious, grabbing him by the shoulders and pinning him against the cabin wall as he yells. He's angry with Cas for making him worry, frustrated with him for his idiocy. When Cas climbs to his feet, afterwards, he doesn't know if he'd hit the ground because he'd shaken Dean off, or if Dean had been the one to force him away first.

He doesn't notice Chuck watching from a few yards away, not until he comes over, helps him to his feet, and steers him towards the showers. In the kitchen, he apologizes as Cas eats leftover stew, and he doesn't stop until they're back in the converted park office that they sometimes share.

Cas catches Chuck's hand when he's about to leave, intent on explaining that he doesn't need Chuck's apologies, though he's thankful for him, but the words stick in his throat, and it's easier, instead, to pull just a little bit, until Chuck is sitting on the couch next to him. Easier to grab hold of him in hopes of keeping him there.

God was gone, but Chuck had stayed.

\---

Once upon a time, he'd been an angel, and he still remembers all of it.

It's at it's best and at it's worst when he's with Chuck like this.

Sometimes it's awkwardness and false starts, a thousand cultural corners that need to be navigated until they're lying together. Sometimes, the maze doesn't end, there- like when Chuck leans back grinning but doesn't leave, saying that he just wants to _look_ at him, or the first time Chuck asked if this was okay and he hadn't had the answer. Sometimes it's flashes of pain and constants reminder of what he _isn't_ anymore.

Sometimes it's the hands reaching out and the warmth of Chuck's body, bound at least momentarily to his own. It's the focused intent that makes the rest of the world as nothing, for a time. It's breathing the air from Chuck's mouth until his head spins. It's waves of fire and sharp flashes. They sing along his nerves, building wildly until the entire universe shatters, and the realization that God gave this much power to humanity makes him want to cry out the way Chuck does, sometimes.

Usually, it's a little both, and Castiel, _Cas_ now, wonders is this is what it means to be human.


End file.
